Leather
by subversivegrrl
Summary: Written for the USS Caryl's 1st Word Prompt Fanfiction/Fanart Challenge, prompt "leather." Daryl doesn't know when Carol's birthday is, but figures he's already missed at least one. Surprisingly not kinky, or even smutty.


He set both of his hands on her hips, just in passing, as he pressed by her in the narrow hallway. It was a close space, but that hadn't been necessary. She might have imagined it, but she even thought he had _squeezed_, if only for a second. Maybe not. Likely it was simple wishful thinking. Lord, it was pathetic how much meaning she could wring out of the slightest gesture, like one of the younger sisters in a Jane Austen novel, the ones who noisily pined for unattainable lovers or dissected every possible nuance of an inevitably doomed romance. She always had preferred to think of herself more as a stalwart Elinor Dashwood, who kept her chin up and barely dared to allow herself to hope for a future with her Edward.

A day later Daryl stopped her in the mess, supposedly to get her ideas on something they'd already discussed to death in a council meeting, and she started to get suspicious. She was so startled when he deliberately laid his hand on the small of her back, his thumb just grazing her beltline, that she completely forgot to give it any more thought.

Finally it was discovering him in her cell, a pair of her cargo pants in his hands, that set bells ringing in her head. Looking more like a jacklighted deer than she'd seen him in the better part of a year, he dropped the trousers on the floor with a muttered curse. Carol angrily elbowed her way past him to retrieve them, and shook them under his nose, saying, "These were clean, Daryl, and folded up in my drawer. What were you doing with them? What the hell is going on here, anyway?"

His face contorted in a grimace of discomfort, and he pressed his lips tightly together. "Can't say. Don't wanna spoil the surprise." Carol stopped short, her irritation somewhat soothed. If he was planning a surprise, he was being uncharacteristically ham-fisted in the way he was going about it. Usually the man could be as sneaky as a cat burglar.

"Next time, Daryl, just ask. Whatever it is you need, ask me first. It'll save a lot of hard feelings." She looked at the stubborn set of his jaw and mentally rolled her eyes. Right, like that was going to happen, if it didn't suit him. Obstinate jackass of a man.

After that he avoided her for most of a week, slipping out of the prison in the mornings before she made it downstairs to prepare breakfast, and conveniently absenting himself from wherever she was the rest of the time. He made a point of letting Rick know where he'd be, so she knew it was intentional. Whatever he was up to, he was staying under her radar.

One evening she was sitting in the library, her feet up on a nearly-empty shelf, peering at a volume of poetry by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern, when Daryl slipped through the door and stood just at the edge of the pool of light, fidgeting, his hands behind his back. She looked at him over the top of her book, but lowered her eyes when he said nothing. She had no intention of letting him off the hook or making things too easy for him. If he had something to say to her, he'd have to work it out for himself.

"Stand up." Carol looked up again, surprised. "Please." His face was creased with an anxious smile. She set aside her book and rose, smoothing her hands against her thighs. Blotting away the sudden dampness on her palms.

"Hold still. Close your eyes." She shook her head, but let her eyes drift shut, thinking how far they'd come, that he was this close to her by choice. The backs of his hands bumped the insides of her wrists, brushing them away from the sides of her body, and his knee collided with the inside of her thigh for a second as he quickly stepped up to her and back, his hands touching her waist and hip with deft, impersonal strokes.

"Daryl?" she asked, her voice slightly unsteady.

"Almost done. Don't peek." He nearly sounded like he was laughing. Pleased with himself, in any case.

"Aw, yeah. That works." His voice was smug. "You can look now."

She opened her eyes and immediately bent her head to look down at herself. Around her waist was a wide, black leather belt, outfitted with a small pouch on the right, and a matching sheath on the left that she could tell would fit her knuckleduster perfectly. The belt hung over her hips, buckled but not yet threaded through the loops - perhaps that would have required just a little too much up-close-and-personal time, she thought.

Daryl hovered nearby, "D'you like it?" he asked.

She turned to him with a wide smile, her hand stroking the soft leather. "It's remarkable, Daryl. Where did you find it?"

His mouth twisted again. Not quite a smile. "Didn't. Cut a piece out of a couch in some fancy office. Been workin' on it for a while. Happy birthday."

She looked closely at the belt again - the fine, even stitching. The baby-soft hand of the leather. It must have taken… _days_ of work.

"You did this all yourself," Carol said, not really asking a question. "So this is what all the handsy business was about, and the thing the other day with my pants?"

He nodded, and leaned back against the bookshelf, his eyes scanning her face for the verdict.

"It's not my birthday, you know," she said softly.

"I figured. But I didn't know when, and I must've missed one or two already, so you were due." It was possibly the most backward excuse for gift-giving that Carol could recall hearing, but she didn't care.

"It's perfect. I love it. Even more so since I know you made it yourself." She ran her hand across the fine grain of the leather, thinking of his hands working it, bending it to his will. "Next time, though, Daryl, check my sewing basket. There's a tape measure in there."

"I know," he said simply. "But where's the fun in that?"


End file.
